This assignment examines the roles and responsibilities nurses have in making decisions about the practice to keep patients safe in Australian healthcare.
As a core skill for nurses, reflection is a conscious effort to think systematically about an activity or incident that allows us to consider the impact on individuals and their professional futures.
In preparation for the assessment task
- View – the script below of the case study
- review – the associated relevant documents below
i. Review the NMBA Registered Nurse Standards of Practice https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-standards/registered-nurse-standards-for-practice.aspx
ii. Australian Commission Safety and Quality in Health Care National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards: Partnering with consumer standards and following the link Partnering with patients in their own care.
iii. Code of conduct; Code of Conduct for Nurses
iv. Code of Ethics; Code of Ethics for Nurses from 1 March 2018, the International Council of Nurses Code of Ethics is in effect for all nurses in Australia
Part 1 – Written Essay 1200
Registered nurses, enrolled nurses, and midwives are responsible for making professional judgments about when an activity is within their scope of practice and, when it is not, for initiating consultation and collaboration with, or referral to, other healthcare team members.
Differentiate and critically discuss the ethical, legal and clinical issues that is associated with the Ms Smithfield Case? Identify and integrate the relevant Codes of practice and the Australian Registered Nurses’ Standards of Practice that aims to prevent these events throughout the discussion. (20 marks) 800 words
Determine and discuss how the registered nurses’ values and attitudes impact their responsibilities in keeping patients safe. (10 marks) 400 words
The Case of Ms Sophie Smithfield – the below event is a true story of actions that an Australian nurse undertook that resulted in a 15-year ban from providing health care in Australia.
The Case of Ms Sophie Smithfield
| Registered Nurse Ms Smithfield administered wrong vaccines to children and doctored records, the AHPRA tribunal findings reveal; |
| She had “wrongly and deliberately deleted, or falsely altered, or made untrue entries” in the records of 17 patients while she was working as a registered nurse at Burberry Clinic in 2017-2018. Ms Smithfield administered a child with the Inactivated poliovirus (IPV) vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and polio (dTpa– IPV ) in January 2017. She informed the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR) that the vaccine had been given, but incorrectly stated on clinic records the vaccine given was MMR for measles, mumps and rubella. Ms Smithfield administered the IPV vaccine for a second time when the child returned to the clinic weeks later, but the MMR vaccine was never injected. The ACIR contacted the child’s parents about the vaccine months later. When questioned about the discrepancy, Ms Smithfield “falsified the records to cover up her own mistake”. “If this had not been discovered, the child would have remained unprotected against the diseases that the MMR guards against,” the judgement said. “The child’s parents would have been deceived into thinking that the child was properly immunised when that was not the case.” A similar course of events was found to have taken place in the cases of two other children, who also had their records altered to hide the fact they had not received the MMR vaccine. In the separate case of another child, Ms Smithfield administered only half of the correct dosage of flu vaccine and again changed the patient’s records to hide the error. After two adult patients suffered adverse reactions to immunisations, Ms Smithfield altered their records to reflect that she had washed her hands before administering the vaccine and asked the patients to remain at the clinic for monitoring. The clinic said it has taken steps to ensure, as far as possible, that any concerns about patient vaccines have now been followed up. |
Please link the answers with the smithfield case
Identify the relevant codes of practice and standdard of practice
explain it linking the standard using the number for eg standard 1.5 as she did not maintain accurate documentation.
Paragraph structure
P1 Ethical issues
P2 Legal issues
P3 Clinical issues
P4 Combined issues
P5 RN’s values and attitudes towards patient safety
Conclusion
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